OT: Why are Audis so cheap?, (used) Options

[TonyAKAVW]

My wife is looking for a car to replace the nun-mobile that we sort of inherited (1990 Toyota Camry). Our choices at the beginning were BMWs, Audis, and not much else. She really has her heart set on the TT, and I think a nice yellow one to match the 914 would be pretty sweet.

So the question is, why are used Audis so cheap? It seems like you can get a fairly early TT for $15-$18k if you shop around a bit. A4s can be had for around $10k or less. My wife doesn't care if it has Quattro or 250 HP, etc.

Is there something wrong with Audis? Do they break after X miles, is their some major flaw with them? I just can't understand why comparable BMWs go for so much more. In many cases its a LOT more.

-Tony

[lapuwali]

Few banks will loan you money for a car that's more than 5 years old, so once a car is older than that, its price tends to fall off a cliff as too few people can cough up $20K or more in cash. Do searches on big classifieds databases (Craigslist is good for this) and you'll see lots of usually expensive cars selling for under $10K simply because they're 7-10 years old. Most of them are still excellent cars that would provide reliable service for another 5 years with nothing more than normal maintenance. This is even true for top-of-the-line cars like the M3 ('95 M3s can be had in the Bay Area for $10K pretty commonly).

I suppose there are still a reasonable number of people who remember the great Audi debacle of the mid-80s, but there are lots of younger buyers who don't know anything about that who associate Audi with their more recent cars. Audis are ranked right up there with BMW and Mercedes in Europe. VWs are also considered somewhat upmarket in Europe, though, so the VW/Audi relationship isn't so "damaging" there as here.

Most cars have been made so well for the last 10 years that buying a 10 year old car is a great bargain right now.